| Joined: | Mon Apr 2nd, 2012 |
| Location: | South Lakeland, UK |
| Posts: | 4066 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
Yes that's very sad tale.
I am a bit surprised though.
When I throw out of date meat and pies onto the lawn the hoards of gulls swoop down from no where and gobble it up. If I throw out other stuff, for example apple and pears (or parts thereof), they won't touch them.
If I throw corn out ...some birds eat it, some wont go near it.
My point is ....they seem to know what not to eat....so how come these sea birds are eating plastic tops? I can understand them accidentally scooping stuff up as they skim the waves but then actually swallowing it seems strange. I can equally understand them ingesting small plastic particles swallowed by fish or scooped up with the food ....that they subsequently eat. I can understand open mouthed plankton feeders scooping up floating plastic tops by mistake. But can't quite get my head round the amount and frequency these birds are 'getting it wrong'. The finches and blue tits even 'spit out' less than perfect sunflower seeds and peanuts. I can't imaging them even contemplating eating plastic seeds and peanuts in a container??
The same applies to fish. The whole art of rod fishing revolves around presenting them with the best artificial mimic of their normal food to fool them...and by all accounts it's a difficult skill to master. Fish won't bite for plastic flies.
Maybe I am missing a point. But I don't understand why these birds have suspended all their knowledge/experience on what's edible in the oceans.
I agree Eric, my (limited) Darwinian knowledge suggest that the ones (species) who devour damaging non-food won't reproduce offspring with the same tendencies, if they do then they will suffer the same fate. Millions of species, large and small, have come and gone over countless millennia, which is a factor which will never end, least not while the earth spins. our tenure will be brief by comparison.
____________________
Robert.